Fannin Terrace Baptist Church
July 19, 2026
  • Washed
  • The Blood
  • Center

      • Proverbs 6:1-3CSB

      • Proverbs 6:4-8CSB

      • Proverbs 6:9-12CSB

      • Proverbs 6:13-16CSB

      • Proverbs 6:17-21CSB

      • Proverbs 6:22-24CSB

      • Proverbs 6:25-28CSB

      • Proverbs 6:29-31CSB

      • Proverbs 6:32-35CSB

  • We have been asking a question together all summer.

    What kind of person am I becoming?

    And we have said this: the voices you welcome shape the person you become.
    Seven weeks in, and I want to build a bridge from last week to this morning — because these two chapters are in conversation with each other.
    Last week we sat with Proverbs 5 and the seduction of folly. We talked about the drift — the way foolishness rarely ambushes us suddenly but pulls us somewhere gradually, one small recalibration at a time. We talked about the pilot flying through clouds, trusting his feelings over the instruments until the turn became a spiral. And we talked about the covenant love of Christ as the only thing strong enough to hold us where we need to be held.
    This morning Proverbs 6 does something different.
    Last week we zoomed in on one specific area of drift. This morning we zoom out. Proverbs 6 gives us a wider-angle lens on the landscape of foolishness — the habits, postures, and character patterns that quietly damage our lives, our relationships, and our communities over time.
    (brief pause)
    And I want to tell you what these patterns have in common before we ever open the chapter — because you will see it once and you will not be able to un-see it.
    Every pattern in this chapter has the same root. Every one of them.

    The self at the center.

    Not dramatic selfishness. Not the caricature. Just the quiet, ordinary posture of a heart that has organized its life around itself — its own security, its own significance, its own protection, its own comfort. The self-managed life. The life that is quietly answering the deepest questions of the soul by looking inward instead of upward.
    That is the root that produces the patterns. And this morning, we are going to trace it through three of them — the patterns that entangle us, the patterns that hollow us, and the patterns that poison our community. And at the end, we are going to see the one person who displaced the self entirely — and who is offering the same displacement to us.

    The Patterns That Entangle Us

    Come back with me to how Proverbs 6 opens — verses 1 through 5.
    Proverbs 6:1–5 CSB
    My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor or entered into an agreement with a stranger, you have been snared by the words of your mouth trapped by the words from your mouth. Do this, then, my son, and free yourself, for you have put yourself in your neighbor’s power: Go, humble yourself, and plead with your neighbor. Don’t give sleep to your eyes or slumber to your eyelids. Escape like a gazelle from a hunter, like a bird from a hunter’s trap.
    The imagery in these verses is striking. A trap. A snare. A gazelle desperate to escape a hunter. Solomon is describing someone who has overcommitted — who has pledged more than they can wisely sustain — and who is now in a position of vulnerability they did not fully anticipate when they made the agreement.
    Now I want to be careful here. Solomon is not condemning financial generosity or mutual support. Those are good things. What he is naming is a specific pattern — the pattern of committing beyond your capacity to deliver because the moment felt urgent, the relationship felt pressing, or you simply did not stop to count the cost before you gave your word.
    Around these parts, where things move fast and handshakes seal deals, this is not a small thing. We make commitments quickly. We say yes because we want to be the kind of person who says yes. And sometimes those commitments — made in good faith, made with genuine intention — create entanglements we spend years trying to escape.

    The pattern Solomon is targeting is not generosity. It is the failure to count the cost before you commit.

    (brief pause)
    Now skip with me to the end of this chapter — verses 20 through 35 — because Solomon returns to a theme we sat with last week. The forbidden woman. The adulteress.
    But I want you to notice that the angle here is different from Proverbs 5.
    Last week Solomon focused on the seduction — the smooth talk, the drift, the recalibrated normal. He was showing you how a person ends up somewhere they never meant to go.
    This week the angle is consequences. Specifically — relational consequences that cannot be undone.
    Look at
    Proverbs 6:32–35 CSB
    The one who commits adultery lacks sense; whoever does so destroys himself. He will get a beating and dishonor, and his disgrace will never be removed. For jealousy enrages a husband, and he will show no mercy when he takes revenge. He will not be appeased by anything or be persuaded by lavish bribes.
    The disgrace will not be wiped away.
    That phrase is the pastoral point of this entire section. Solomon is not primarily describing a moral failure here. He is describing a relational wound that has a particular quality — it does not heal the way other wounds heal. The trust that is broken in this kind of betrayal carries a permanent quality. The husband's jealousy, Solomon says, will not be appeased by any compensation.
    Some consequences, once produced, cannot be negotiated away.
    And the pattern underneath both sections — financial overcommitment and sexual betrayal — is the same root. The failure to count what something will actually cost before you give yourself to it. The commitment made in the heat of the moment, the feeling, the opportunity — without honestly reckoning with what will be required to sustain it or what will be lost if it fails.
    (brief pause)
    The gospel speaks directly into this pattern — not by minimizing the consequences, but by addressing the root.
    The reason we overcommit, the reason we give ourselves to things that cost more than we anticipated, is ultimately because we are looking for something. Security. Significance. Belonging. The felt sense that we are enough, that we matter, that we are not missing out.
    The gospel says: in Christ, you already have what the self has been reaching for. You are already secure. Already significant. Already fully known and fully loved. The restless overcommitment that entangles us is the behavior of a self that is still trying to build its own security — that has not yet received what Christ has already given.
    The pattern breaks when the root changes.

    The Patterns That Hollow Us

    Come back to verses 6 through 11.
    Proverbs 6:6–11 CSB
    Go to the ant, you slacker! Observe its ways and become wise. Without leader, administrator, or ruler, it prepares its provisions in summer; it gathers its food during harvest. How long will you stay in bed, you slacker? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the arms to rest, and your poverty will come like a robber, your need, like a bandit.
    Now. Before I say anything else, I want to name something that may be the immediate reaction of most people in this room to that passage.
    “That's not me. I am not a slacker. I work hard. I get up early. I stay late. Nobody in Midland, Texas is going to sit still while someone calls them lazy.”
    (brief smile)
    And you are probably right. In the conventional sense — the sense Solomon's original readers would have recognized — laziness is not Midland's primary problem. We are a city of early mornings and long hours. We know how to work.
    But I want to introduce you to a specific kind of laziness that is entirely compatible with professional drivenness.

    A kind of sloth that hides very comfortably inside a full calendar and a strong work ethic.

    Spiritual laziness.
    (brief pause)
    The ant, Solomon says, prepares in summer and gathers in harvest. It works without being told. It does not need a supervisor to motivate it. It acts now because it understands that what you do in the season of provision determines what you have in the season of need.
    That is a wisdom principle that applies to far more than finances.
    The person who is spiritually lazy is not necessarily someone who sleeps until noon. They are often someone who is genuinely productive in every visible area of life — successful at work, engaged as a parent, active in the community — but who has allowed their interior life to run on fumes.
    They have not prayed with any consistency in months. Not because they don't believe in prayer — they do. They just haven't gotten around to it.
    They have not opened their Bible outside of Sunday morning in longer than they want to admit. Not because they don't value Scripture — they do. They just haven't found the time.
    They show up to church when it is convenient, engage when it is easy, and coast on the spiritual capital accumulated in an earlier season — not realizing that spiritual capital, like any other resource, depletes when it is not replenished.
    A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest.
    And your poverty will come like a robber.
    (brief pause)
    Here is what makes this pattern so particularly dangerous in Midland.
    We are not a culture that takes interior poverty seriously — because interior poverty is invisible. Nobody can see it at the job site or the office or the school pickup line. The person running on spiritual fumes looks exactly like the person running on a full tank from the outside. Both show up. Both perform. Both get things done.
    But inside, something is quietly being depleted. The resilience that Scripture produces. The clarity that prayer gives. The perspective that worship restores. The community that genuine engagement with the church provides. All of it slowly draining while the external life hums along.
    The ant does not wait until it is in need to begin preparing. It acts now, in the season of provision, because it understands the season of need is coming.
    The gospel speaks into this pattern too — not by adding guilt to an already exhausted person, but by reframing the question.
    The spiritually lazy person is often someone who has reduced their relationship with God to a duty rather than a delight. Prayer feels like a task. Bible reading feels like homework. Church feels like an obligation. And obligations are the first thing to go when the calendar gets full.
    But the gospel says: the spiritually lazy self is a self trying to run its own life on its own resources. What Christ offers is not another item on your calendar — it is a relationship with the one who sought you before you ever thought to seek him, who laid down his life so that the self could stop running on empty and start drawing from a source that never runs dry. The ant gathers because gathering is what ants do. The Christian prays and reads and worships and engages because those are the practices through which the living God actually forms us — and a person who has tasted that formation does not ultimately want to live without it.
    You were not designed to run on empty. And you do not have to.

    The Patterns That Poison Community

    Come back to the section beginning with verse 12:
    Proverbs 6:12–15 CSB
    A worthless person, a wicked man goes around speaking dishonestly, winking his eyes, signaling with his feet, and gesturing with his fingers. He always plots evil with perversity in his heart; he stirs up trouble. Therefore calamity will strike him suddenly; he will be shattered instantly, beyond recovery.
    And then verses 16 through 19 — one of the most direct passages in the entire book of Proverbs.
    Proverbs 6:16–19 CSB
    The Lord hates six things; in fact, seven are detestable to him: arrogant eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that plots wicked schemes, feet eager to run to evil, a lying witness who gives false testimony, and one who stirs up trouble among brothers.
    I want to spend some time with this list — because it is not a random collection of sins. It is a portrait.
    Arrogant eyes. The posture of a person who looks at the world and sees themselves as the measure of it. Who sizes up every room, every relationship, every situation from the vantage point of their own superiority.
    A lying tongue. Not just the dramatic lie. The habitual dishonesty that has become so ordinary it no longer registers as dishonesty. The spin, the half-truth, the strategic omission.
    Hands that shed innocent blood. Harm done to people who do not deserve it. The willingness to hurt someone in order to advance yourself.
    A heart that plots wicked schemes. The internal life of a person whose creativity has been turned toward destruction rather than construction. Who thinks about how to get what they want at the expense of other people.
    Feet eager to run to evil. Not reluctant sin. Enthusiastic sin. The person who moves toward wrong rather than away from it.
    A lying witness. Someone who uses their voice — their testimony, their words in the community — to create a false picture of reality. To make something appear true that is not.
    And then the last one. The one Solomon adds as the seventh — the culminating item in the list.
    One who stirs up trouble among brothers.
    (brief pause)
    I want to stay here. Because I think this is the most practically relevant item on this list for a church like ours right now.
    We are a congregation in a season of transition. We are moving toward something — toward a clearer vision, a stronger structure, a more faithful way of being the church together. And transitions, by their nature, create the conditions in which trouble-stirring flourishes.
    Let me describe for you exactly what the trouble-stirrer looks like in a church context. Because they rarely look like a villain. They usually look like a concerned friend.
    They pull you aside after the service with a lowered voice. They say they are just asking questions — but the questions are designed to create anxiety rather than find answers. They share concerns about the direction of the church — not with the pastor or the elders, but with whoever will listen in the parking lot. They traffic in "I've heard that..." and "people are saying..." and "I'm just not sure about..." They plant seeds of doubt and then step back and let those seeds grow in someone else's heart.
    They are not shouting. They are whispering. And the whisper is the danger.
    (brief pause)
    Here is what I want to say directly and clearly to this congregation this morning.
    That pattern is not acceptable here. Not because I am fragile. Not because questions are unwelcome — questions are always welcome, brought to the right people in the right spirit. But because what Solomon is describing is not a question. It is a posture. It is a person who has decided that their discomfort with a direction is more important than the unity of the body — and who acts on that decision by spreading their discomfort as widely as possible.
    The Lord hates it. Not dislikes. Hates.
    And so I want to give you two very specific things to do when you encounter this pattern in our community.
    First — refuse to receive it. When someone pulls you aside with a whisper, you have a choice in that moment. You can receive the whisper and pass it along, adding your own anxiety to theirs. Or you can say: "I appreciate you sharing this with me. Have you talked to the pastor about it? Because that is the right place for this conversation." Refuse to be the next node in the network.

    The whisper dies when it finds no willing ear.

    Second — confront it directly. Not harshly. Not publicly. But clearly. If you know someone who is actively sowing discord in this congregation, love them enough to say so to their face. Not to shame them. Because the pattern is poisoning them as much as it is poisoning the community. The troublemaker of Proverbs 6 does not escape the consequences of their trouble-stirring — they are shattered by them. Confronting the pattern is an act of love, not aggression.
    (brief pause)
    And here is the gospel that speaks into this pattern.
    The reason people sow discord is ultimately the same reason people overcommit and coast spiritually — a disordered self at the center. The troublemaker is a person whose sense of significance, safety, or control is threatened by change — and who has chosen a destructive rather than constructive response to that threat.
    The gospel says: you do not have to protect yourself this way. Your significance is not threatened by a change in how we do church. Your safety is not dependent on things staying the way they are. Your identity is secured in Christ — not in the preservation of a particular structure or culture or way of doing things.
    The self that feels threatened by change is a self that has not yet fully received its security from Christ.
    The person who knows that can sit with discomfort and bring it to the right place. Can ask hard questions openly rather than spreading anxiety quietly. Can be for the community even when the community is changing.

    Invitation

    I want to close with something that holds all three of these patterns together.
    We have looked at three patterns this morning. And underneath every one of them we have seen the same word.
    Self.
    The self at the center of the overcommitment. The self at the center of the spiritual coasting. The self at the center of the whisper.
    Every pattern in this chapter — every rope Solomon warned about, every hollow we let form, every poison we let spread — traces back to the same place. A heart that has organized its life around itself.
    And the gospel answer to a self at the center is not self-improvement. It is not trying harder to be less selfish. It is a Person who displaced the self entirely — by living the life we could not live and dying the death we deserved.
    Isaiah 53 describes him.
    Isaiah 53:3–5 CSB
    He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering who knew what sickness was. He was like someone people turned away from; he was despised, and we didn’t value him. Yet he himself bore our sicknesses, and he carried our pains… But he was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities; punishment for our peace was on him, and we are healed by his wounds.
    (brief pause)
    Do you see who this is describing?
    Not arrogant eyes — but eyes that wept over Jerusalem, that looked with compassion on the crowds who were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.
    Not a lying tongue — but the one who said "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Who opened not his mouth before his accusers. Who told the truth even when it cost him everything.
    Not hands that shed innocent blood — but innocent hands that were pierced for our transgressions.
    Not a heart that plots wicked schemes — but a heart so oriented toward the Father that in the darkest moment it prayed: not my will, but yours.
    Not feet eager to run to evil — but feet that walked willingly toward a cross.
    Not a false witness — but the faithful and true witness, the firstborn from the dead.
    And not a sower of discord — but the one who made peace. Who reconciled what was broken. Who tore down the dividing wall and made the two into one.
    Every pattern Solomon warns against — Jesus embodied its opposite. Perfectly. At infinite cost.
    And he did not do it as an example for us to admire. He did it in our place. He absorbed the consequence of every pattern we have examined this morning — the entanglement, the hollowness, the poison — so that the patterns themselves could be broken in us by his Spirit.
    That is the gospel.
    (brief pause)
    So here is where I want to land this morning, friends.
    Some of you are entangled right now — in a financial commitment, a relationship, a situation that cost more than you anticipated and that you cannot see your way out of. The gospel does not promise instant extraction. But it offers the settled identity that stops the cycle — the security in Christ that means you no longer need to keep committing beyond your capacity to find what only he can give you.
    Some of you are hollow. The calendar is full and the soul is running on empty and you know it. This morning is your invitation to stop coasting and start gathering. Not out of guilt. Out of hunger. The God who made you for relationship with himself is not keeping score. He is waiting.
    And some of you need to stop whispering.
    Not because the concerns are illegitimate — they may not be. But because the method is poisoning you and the people around you. Bring it into the light. Ask your question to the right person. Trust the community enough to speak clearly rather than sideways.
    (brief pause)
    In a moment we are going to respond together. First Steps is the table at the back of this room where real people are ready to talk with you, pray with you, and help you take your next step.
    Maybe that step is trusting Jesus Christ for the first time — surrendering to the one who displaced every pattern with his own life and him becoming the center of yours.
    And I want to make sure you know what that actually means — because I do not want you to leave this room uncertain about the next step.
    Every pattern we have looked at this morning has the same root: the self at the center. Trusting Christ begins with removing it. You repent — you turn from the life organized around yourself, your judgment, your need to secure your own significance — and you trust. You place your confidence in the one who lived the life you could not live, died the death you deserved, and rose to offer you something no pattern of your own can produce: a new center.
    That is available to you right now. Before you leave this room.
    Walk to First Steps and tell someone: I want to trust Christ today. That is all you need to say. They will know what to do.
    Maybe that step is repentance — naming a specific pattern this morning and turning away from it.
    Whatever it is — First Steps is for you.
    (brief pause)
    Here is the bottom line I want you to carry out of this room today:

    Every pattern begins with the self at the center. And Christ has already displaced it.

      • Proverbs 6:1–5CSB

      • Proverbs 6:32–35CSB

      • Proverbs 6:6–11CSB

      • Proverbs 6:12–15CSB

      • Proverbs 6:16–19CSB

      • Isaiah 53:3–5CSB

Fannin Terrace Baptist Church
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